BT contract renewal

Have just renewed my BT Broadband and Phone contract. When speaking to BT Retentions I was informed that there is now a £2.00 a month charge for Pay As You Go to allow me to make outgoing telephone calls. I have never heard of this charge before but as I have in the past paid £5 a month for 500 minutes of included calls it might just be I was unaware that this new to me charge has been on the go for some time.
This brings my monthly invoice to £30.99 for unlimited Broadband Fibre1 and telephone line which seemed to me okay. I have tried in the past other suppliers like Andrews and Arnold, Zen, Plusnet etc but BT gives me a faultless service which the others were not capable of, so I am sticking with BT. I would just like to know if others have heard of this £2 Pay As You Go Charge?

Using VOIP would likely be cheaper. Sipgate do not make a standing charge and their call costs are much lower than BT's.

Thank you Michael for your reply.

We make very few telephone calls these days, but due too our remote location and with the frequent power cuts we get we wanted to still be able to use our BT line for outgoing calls and if I have understood the situation correctly VOIP would not work during a power cut, where my BT line still is operative at least until BT forces us to use their version of VOIP.

I wonder if it’s a bit of a convoluted way of reducing the price for you , after all a £2 charge to have pay as you go calls is an oxymoron…now that BT broadband is available without any phone service ( incoming or outgoing calls ) and is £5 cheaper that the equivalent ‘bundle’ of telephony and broadband ( before the price increases) , arguably it’s £5 for telephony, but anecdotally, this can be and often is reduced to £2…,
I’m guessing rather that processing the order as a bundle ( so £5 more than standalone broadband ) they submit your order as standalone broadband and add telephony for £2 rather than £5…., in your case £30.99 is cheaper than list price, even if there appears to be an arbitrary £2 for PAYG

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 03-Mar-22 20:14:55)

Corsa57

I understand that problem having had an FTTP connection and no landline for almost 7 years. I hope you are able to get a mobile signal without having to travel somewhere.

Recently there have been a number of letters in the Daily Telegraph complaining about BTs plans to change the ways that phones work.

In reply to a post by corsa57:

Thank you Michael for your reply.

We make very few telephone calls these days, but due too our remote location and with the frequent power cuts we get we wanted to still be able to use our BT line for outgoing calls and if I have understood the situation correctly VOIP would not work during a power cut, where my BT line still is operative at least until BT forces us to use their version of VOIP.

WIth frequent power cuts I suggest you get a UPS. In my working life I used and usually recommended APC kit. But that was many years ago so recommendations might be different now.

In reply to a post by corsa57:

We make very few telephone calls these days, but due too our remote location and with the frequent power cuts we get we wanted to still be able to use our BT line for outgoing calls and if I have understood the situation correctly VOIP would not work during a power cut, where my BT line still is operative at least until BT forces us to use their version of VOIP.

That won't be long. From 2023 you can expect all contract renewals to move you onto digital voice, and by December 2025 all analogue telephony will be turned off.

If you have any half-decent mobile signal then I think you should use that for your voice coverage (outgoing calls on mobile are cheaper anyway).

If not, then get a decent UPS - if it is dedicated to the router only then it should give you a few hours of supply. The batteries in the FTTC cabinet may only last a few hours anyway.

£30, wow I renewed around black Friday time and got upto 80mb for £20.99 incl phone line, I just pay 20p connection charge if I use my landline, which I try not to.

Keep checking MyBT Your Products>Landline>Upgrade.

Often there is an option to change to PAYG for £0. I did this a couple of months ago.

The same question was asked on the BT Community forum, and ( eventually ) the BT Mod provided the answer to the apparent £2 charge for PAYG,
Essentially, standalone broadband is officially £5 cheaper than the equivalent telephony / broadband package , telephony has to have a call plan , the cheapest being ‘free’ PAYG, the fee £2 or £5 is actually the difference in cost between standalone broadband and telephony/broadband bundle, not the cost of the calls package , and given that the list price is £5, getting ‘telephony’ added to your broadband for £2 is actually a decent discount…the PAYG call package is as it implies , free unless you use it, no charge is raised if you don’t make an outgoing call.
You can still save the £2 ( or £5 ) by not having any telephony at all ( incoming / outgoing ), basically the £2 is for having a phone number capable of receiving incoming calls, not for having PAYG outgoing calls.

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 24-Mar-22 20:34:39)